Summary

Bill Gates criticized Elon Musk for his support of far-right politicians, including the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD party, calling it “insane shit” and accusing Musk of destabilizing political systems.

Gates questioned Musk’s focus on divisive politics while managing global businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.

Gates also expressed concern about wealthy individuals influencing foreign elections.

Musk has faced backlash for controversial actions, including a Nazi salute.

  • Twig@sopuli.xyz
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    1 day ago

    Definitely worth listening to the Behind The Bastards podcast episode on Gates.

  • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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    2 days ago

    Every single billionaire is a policy failure. By hoarding that much wealth, they are literally bad people. But that doesn’t mean they can’t do good things, or even give away what they don’t need, like the ex-billionaire Charles Feeney who redeemed himself and donated most of his billions, anonymously.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-54300268

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      Gates is a “lesser evil” billionaire but he advocated not to revoke the patents on Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic. I understand the need for innovation, but screw him for still being greedy in the face of immediate crisis. He is two-faced nonetheless.

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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          He still has given away a lot of his wealth to charities, to be fair. He was the richest man after all until Elon came. But Gates is still a billionaire (only because of his underhanded business practices) in spite of donations so he’s still evil but to a lesser extent.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            A lot? He’s currently worth $107 billion. That’s the most he’s ever been worth.

            You would think that someone giving away “a lot” of their wealth would be worth less than before. If you’re giving away so little that your wealth is actually growing, I’d say you’re not actually giving away a lot.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      yeah he’s so good… at fucking up the education system. seriously fuck this guy and his wife for what they did in the name of so-called education reform, he’s just like the rest of them thinking just because he made a lot of money gaming the system he suddenly knows so much about everything. and fuck the united states for allowing these maniacs completely shape the country however they want.

      I thought it was foolish that they allowed gates to do education reform, but then I thought it was insane they allowed reelon the troglodyte to make tunnels for his fucking explody cars. but that wasn’t enough apparently so now they give him the keys to the entire kingdom.

      un-fucking-believable.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, no Billie. You’ve caused enough shit with Microsoft, making yourself a billionaire. you don’t get to play the good guy now all of the sudden.

    • IamLazersword@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      That’s just in the Lemmy summary. In the actual article, it says “nazi-style salute” SMH…

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        17 hours ago

        I like “-style”, because it has the implication that fits with the rest of his life thus far: The gesture was that of a cringy poser making a pathetic attempt to impress the very worst kinds of people, and he was so sloppy, that bought news corpos could actually attempt to say there’s room for doubt.

        Lol.

        LMAO.

        Behold the loser weirdo man, who can ‘heil’ about as well as he games.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I always forget Gates is one of the elite. Then I remember how ruthless and savage he was in the 80s.

    Then I remember.

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      80s, 90s, and a few years into early 2000s. Gates ruthlessness lasted decades, destroyed many businesses and lives, and is mostly whitewashed thanks to his philanthropic efforts and a few reddit amas and some secret santa participation

      Not to mention the destruction he did to computing as a whole. The nightmare of proprietary bullshit is something that he did not architect but he pushed heavily and lobbied for constantly. He had the position to push for interoperability from an early stake in computing, to set the stage for computers to have a strong precedent to work together. Instead he and microsoft made every effort to work against open standards. They would adopt open standards and extend them with proprietary extensions to intentionally ruin them. A lot of what is infuriating about modern tech can be traced back to precedent that microsoft set at his direction

      Reminder despite every donation he has made his net worth is higher now than it ever was and this has essentially always been the case. His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        He’s still pushing ‘intellectual property’ as part of his philanthropy. The creators of the Oxford vaccine wanted to open source it and give it away for free. Gates opposed that and he got his way (partly because of the influence of the Gates Foundation). The delays this caused probably killed millions of extra people in the Global South (not sure if anyone ever did the maths on this).

        • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Not shocking to hear, he’s a scumbag at heart. But now if you say that people will be like “uhhh how can you say that he’s donated so much money”

          Then when you point out he’s donated literally 0% of his overall current net worth, his past (and current, apparently) behavior has arguably as much humanity if not more than he has offset, etc you’ll get whataboutism. “What have you done??”

          I don’t want philanthropy to be contingent on the whims of billionaires. Gates has done a lot but it still has major issues, there is no real transparency, and it’s still authoritatively controlled because he has a great deal of influence over his foundation. The even bigger issue is that he is by far the exception. Other billionaires donate minimally only to maximize tax benefits and only to issues they have been personally impacted by.

          The other day I was with people who were watching a football game. The eagles won and I asked why the owner gets to speak first at the trophy ceremony, let alone at all, given it was the teams effort. This led to a whole discussion but one thing that came up was how he donates so much money to autism research because he has a grandson with autism. This was meant to appeal to me because I have a background working in autism research and I work with people with autism a lot.

          all I could think is “how fucked up is it that we have to hope that an obscenely rich person personally experiences the issue for them to decide to bequeath funding?” This inherently means that things with a much higher rate of prevalence, like autism (1 in 36, roughly) or dementia (prevalence varies widely by age range (2% to 13%) but ~10 million cases per year), will get tons of money. But what about far less common things? I’ve worked with people who have extremely rare conditions. Angelmans syndrome, prader willi, chromosomal deletions, (rates of 1-2 per 10,000) or extremely rare things like hellers syndrome (rates of 1-2 per 100,000).

          This is why we fund things like NIMH, so that money can be fairly dispersed to ensure that all things are researched. Teams of people research what needs to be researched. This isn’t even just about equity; sometimes researching lesser known disorders leads to discoveries that are applicable in a broader context

          But instead we let a few oligarchs hoard money. Most of them don’t bother to fund this stuff at all and they few that do only bother to do so when it’s something personally relevant to them. We have no say in the matter.

          • jonne@infosec.pub
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            2 days ago

            The biggest argument against philanthropy is that they get to deduct it from their taxes, so instead of us as a society collectively deciding what to do with that money (provided you had a working democracy, of course), the billionaire gets to decide that. And some of that philanthropy money actually goes to causes that further undermine democracy. Just because something is a charity doesn’t mean it does good. You can deduct donations to the federalist society or the heritage foundation, for example.

        • labbbb2@thelemmy.club
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          ‘Global South’ sounds like some right-wing term. LMIC (low middle-income country) is better.

          • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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            Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the Southern hemisphere houses pretty much just the poorest countries. Poverty also correlates strongly with average temperature, so it increases as you approach the Equator from either side (oil-rich Sultanates included, since the countries are rich but the people are still poor).

            For what it’s worth, many people here in Brazil use the phrase “global south” as a better alternative to “third world”, an expression which no longer makes sense since the fall of the USSR, and I haven’t ever seen anyone on the Left here be offended or bothered by it.

          • 000999@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            The global south is a real thing, look it up.

            As a matter of fact, the term replaces “third world” lol

      • labbbb2@thelemmy.club
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        His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has

        Like with the some billionaires.

        • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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          Untrue. Most don’t engage in actual philantropy at all, but donate only to causes that will directly benefit their bottom line, such as sectors that depend on their products, or for scholarships in fields where their companies hire heavily. That isn’t actually donating. It’s just tax-exempt investing. In this sense, Gates is a cut above other billionaires.

          His actions merit a freshly sharpened blade on his guillotine. Musk can have the rusty one that we’ll need to drop thrice to get the job done.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        His philanthropy, while objectively good,

        I wouldn’t even go that far.

        Say you have a crazy idea that education would be better if kids went to school blindfolded so they wouldn’t be distracted. You then use your vast fortune to arrange for that to be tried out on a bunch of kids for a few years. It’s a disaster. It sets those kids back for years. You realize it’s a disaster, so after a few years you abandon the project.

        In that case was your philanthropy objectively good? Or was it probably bad?

        Those are the kinds of experiments the Gates foundation has done. Because Gates is so insanely rich, he doesn’t have to bother with convincing people he has a good idea. He doesn’t need to run his ideas by education experts or psychologists, he can just run with them. So he does, and he fucks shit up, then he leaves.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Maybe Elon’s mommy will allow him and Zuck to have a chair jumping contest in the octagon.

        • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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          I’d put money on Zuck, he seems like he might be able to jump a chair.

          Shitty Person, but possibly good chair jumper. Maybe Zuck will do a Philanthropy run later in life like Bill?

          • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
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            If Zuckerberg ever does philanthropy, it will be in a dystopian format where you need to hand over all your personal data to receive the benefits

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      And how he fought tooth and nail against generic versions of the covid vaccines being allowed, likely leading to thousands if not millions of deaths and many more getting sick in poorer countries where most people can’t afford name brand drugs.

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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      Yeah, he was a real asshole 44 years ago. Glad people never change at all.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        TIL that his blocking generic versions of the covid vaccines which led to the deaths of thousands if not millions in poorer countries where most people can’t afford name brand drugs happened 44 years ago 🙄

        • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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          I can only repeat what I said before I anther comment. I’m not defending Gates. Of course there are things he should be criticised for. You bring up one example here.

          What I am saying is, that you should not judge him on what he did four decades ago, but how he is acting today.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            Of course there are things he should be criticised for. You bring up one example here.

            An example with a body count exceeding that of almost all other people on earth. That’s worthy of far more than just “criticism”.

            If he had been poor and responsible for the same number of avoidable deaths, he would be rightly considered one of history’s greatest monsters.

            What I am saying is, that you should not judge him on what he did four decades ago, but how he is acting today.

            And today he’s acting like a goddamn monster who values property and profits over thousands if not millions of human lives. That’s what I’m judging him for today.

          • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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            I would call 2020 close enough to today to call it the modern era. So he IS being judged for who he’s recently shown himself to be

        • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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          Yes. I don’t want to judge people by who they were four decades ago, but who they have become. I believe that every human has the potential to grow and learn.

          Mind you, I’m not saying Mr. Gates is an angel now, or shouldn’t be judged. But I’d rather base ma judgement on the person he is now that on the person he was long ago.

  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
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    It’s not insane at all. It sucks but it’s completely logical. Musk is just protecting his capital as best he can within a global capitalist system.

    It’s like corporate “greedflation” during Covid. Of course they jacked up prices and lied about wholesale costs, thereby wildly inflating profits, because profit motives are what drive our world.

    • a9cx34udP4ZZ0@lemmy.world
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      It’s not insane at all. It sucks but it’s completely logical. Musk is just protecting his capital as best he can within a global capitalist system.

      No, it’s absolutely insane, and short sighted. You know how much his capital will be in the event of WWIII? We won’t be spending money on overpriced EVs or sending rockets to outer space on scientific missions to study the universe. Assuming he doesn’t get himself assassinated first by people that actually care about democracy. The absolute BEST thing to protect his capital is a strong spending class in the US, which would require the economy to not collapse. You gut social services, there is exactly one logical outcome and it is social unrest followed by either class war or civil war.

  • A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl
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    Mr Gates actually has some power to do something about the crazyness and shittines of the world we live right now.

    I don’t discredit his philanthropic work, some of the things he does is actually good, neither that he calls out the insanity, any sane person should do, but, and this but is as huge as the Titanic, Mr Gates, is able to do something about it, and has been for a long time before shit hit the fan tbh, actions speak louder than words, specially the lack of action lmao.

    If Mr Gates really feel this way, he should do something about it, he has the money.

    • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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      Money’s great and all, but where exactly would his spending help right now?

      Trump’s brown-nosing billionaires have trillions between them, let alone foreign governments actively supporting the destabilisation of the western world.

      The far-right has the market cornered on information & infrastructure control currently. Even Gates’ would struggle using his money to influence any meaningful change. It’s depressing.

      Attacking their fragile egos of Nazis… Now that’s free and plentiful.

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        And if he starts meddling in politics he would just prove the nut jobs right. Nothing would change since the people that need convincing already believe he is pulling strings. They would vote for Trump either way.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        What are the rules on offering a reward and legal counsel/protection for someone providing verifiable information about things like how that anonymous Twitter employee said shit happened.

        Tbh I don’t really believe that report, it’s too easy to just write shit up like that anonymously, but I don’t doubt there is some shady shit going on that money would maybe convince someone to leak legit data or knowledge on.

        • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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          Money would also attract grifters who want to create fake scandals for the payoff. I agree with you that there is absolutely some reprehensible shit going down behind closed doors at Xitter, and at Meta too for that matter, but if Gates or anyone else offered a financial incentive to come forward, finding something that actually happened amid all the reports they received would be like finding a needle in a haystack blindfolded and without a magnet. Especially now that everybody has access to several LLMs to write the fake scandal reports for them. Yes, most would be easy to identify as fake, but someone would still have to take the time to read them. So-called AI detectors aren’t worth anything.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            Ya, that does make sense. Rewards bring out a lot of fake shit.

            And ya, definitely Meta too. They’ve been at it so long, I imagine it would dwarf anything we find out about Twitter.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      Maybe it’s no coincidence that Twitter has been pushing all the “Bill Gates Microchip Vaccines” lunatics over the last few years, in order to discredit a rival.

    • im sorry i broke the code@sh.itjust.works
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      Yeah, he cares so much about “polio” and hiv which is fine and all, but he is trying to justify Trump ffs, who is, and was, a covid denier! Calling out musk is the bare minimum, and its just so crazy that nobody has done so yet

    • Woht24@lemmy.world
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      Do what? Governments need to do more.

      You’re saying Bill Gates should meddle in international affairs to stop Musk?

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Sorry mate this dumb factoid doesn’t withstand even a moment’s scrutiny.

        If you donate $10 you might save $3 in tax but you lost all $10.

        The Gates Foundation might use a few cents from that $10 for fancy dinners for Gates and his wife or whatever but there are auditors to ensure that the money is used for the people they purport to help. Their records are public and I can assure you that if there were any wrong doing whatsoever the internet would be afire with every detail.

      • Paddzr@lemmy.world
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        Okay? So he does good, your point being? He could’ve done what everyone else does in his place and don’t contribute.

        You’re letting g perfect be the enemy of good.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          your point being?

          It’s not nearly enough, he does it to look good more than to actually do good, and he shouldn’t ever have had that much money in the first place

          Don’t let someone doing a few good things make you think they don’t deserve to be killed, eaten, and their wealth redistributed

          Bill Gates isn’t a good person

          • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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            That’s a separate point. As long as the result benefits people, the motivation doesn’t matter. Gates’s problem isn’t that he helps fight disease for the wrong reasons. His problem is that he hoards more wealth than anyone could ever need and only helps with a small fraction of the resources he could help with if he really wanted to. But if his tax evasion saves people from painful death by disease, I say it’s a good thing. Most billionaires evade taxes without saving anyone else from anything.

            Gates deserves a guillotine with a freshly sharpened and well lubricated blade. Musk deserves a rusty blade that will need to be dropped thrice to get the job done.

  • ansiz@lemmy.world
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    The insane shit is probably Musk’s obsession with trying to impress gamers with his (pretend) gaming skills. Having characters in Diablo 4 or PoE2 being clearly played by other people, while acting like this is his work alone.

    • d00ery@lemmy.world
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      If he’s so desperate to impress about something as inconsequential as gaming, what kind of lies is he saying about everything else …

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        Like if anyone ever screamed “overcompensating for a small dick”…

        Like we probably don’t have the scientific equipment to actually locate Musk’s cock if it’s size is relative to how much he’s overcompensating.

    • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works
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      I for one wouldn’t rule out that, when Musk talks about working 12-hour days, what he really does is to let others work, while he sits on his ass tweeting and playing video games like the pathetic fraud that he is.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        When you see him playing in video’s he’s playing.

        He just uses other people to help level him up. I wouldn’t really say that using someone to grind for you means you can’t play. Him not being able to play would be him getting destroyed in the videos where he shows himself playing.

        He just cheats to get his characters to a high level.

        Edit: Another way to think of it… lets say he did this with Dota 2, and he gets up to the 2nd highest tier through his own play, and with cheating by others grinding his ranks. Then, he plays matches at that tier and consistently wins (and self performs) as much as you’d expect anyone at that tier. Can he play Dota 2? I’d say yes. Did he cheat? Yes.

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        From the sounds of it he just sucks at all games. The one game we know he plays himself is a little puzzle game that’s on the level of tic tac toe. It’s just a dopamine generator.

  • goodthanks@lemmy.world
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    I have to question the judgement of Bill Gates when he calls Musk “super-smart”. Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense. I think he was just lucky and unencumbered by ethics or self-doubt.

    • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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      Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense.

      Why is this american obsession on weighting the value of men with the money they made? Musk is an idiot regardless of his money or how he made it.

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        I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not American, and I don’t place much value on enormous wealth accumulation. I’m just acknowledging that there is a difference between gaining enormous wealth with a hefty leg up from family wealth versus doing it from scratch, like growing up in poverty for example.

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          You can’t get that amount of money without exploitation. If you start from 0 it just means you have to actually work for it but end result is still the same.

            • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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              you should define the word rich better in this context. Personally I have started to think word “rich” as negative thing, someone who has more than they need at expense of others, but I dont think that is very common way to think.

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                I think a lot of people don’t consider the exploitation angle. Often they see someone like Bill gates as having invented windows and see his wealth as earned by goods provided that they don’t think would otherwise exist. It’s what capital teaches is the justification for wealth

              • goodthanks@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                You’re right, the term is very subjective. The lower bound for me is owning multiple properties, owning a business and making money from the labour of others.

                • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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                  2 days ago

                  Well, its okay to make some money from others labour, as long as its fair. But way it currently works, that some business owner gets majority of the value of someones work is not okay. That is just benefitting from being on stronger position than someone else and ultimately isnt much different from taking from someone by force. Its not like you can refuse to participate as people need to have money to live.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Quite a lot of americans equate money with success and ability. Elon musk must be the smartest guy because dumb people dont make money like that.

        I think its reverse engineering though, americans see his worth, and work backwards claiming all his choices are genius and well thought out.

        • Kichae@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          It’s absolutely reverse engineering. People want to believe that the world is a meritocracy, and that means believing that those who have succeeded at meritful.

          People avoid internalizing that the world is a kleptocracy, because that would mean having to confront that if they want to get ahead, they’ll have to actively amd knowingly fuck other people over, and most of us are not psychopaths

          • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            People who have fully bought into the hard work+talent=success line cannot stand to have that belief shaken by realizing that someone dinner than them lucked/exploited their way to more success than they did.

      • ansiz@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Americans equal money with power, the more power you have, the more value, etc. That is basically it.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          2 days ago

          Money = Speech don’t ya know.

          Mo’ money is a bigger voice in their system. Other countries call that “corrupt to the core”.

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Its not just power, its ego and success. If McDonalds started paying 30$ an hour it would suddenly be a job that signaled success, despite nothing changing about the job duties.

          Thats what’s happening here, elon is rich so he must be smart, and now people are jealous and emulate him. The OP is right though, money or not he’s an idiot.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Bill Gates has also been riding an unearned “genius” appellation for decades. He didn’t make DOS. (His charitable work on vaccination is also questionable - iirc there were concerns over intellectual property rights)

      The tide is turning against billionaires, and he’s just recognizing that Musk is making them all look bad.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Gates had two lawyers for parents, one of whom served on a board of directors with the CEO of IBM. IBM had been continually fighting an antitrust suit with the government for years, so they knew they had to tread carefully with the operating system for their first personal computers. It’s no surprise they hired Gates to do that work. Also, because of the antitrust case, they directed Gates to buy QDOS instead of buying it themselves. As for the contract that gave Gates a very sweet deal when it came to selling DOS to for non-IBM computers… I wonder if his two lawyer parents might have been involved in that contract.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      You can’t become the richest man in the world and the most powerful billionaire in the world by accident, even if you start with a golden spoon. Most millionaire child will just spend the rest of their life being spoiled and unconcerned with the world, very very few spend their money helping others and building society, but him? He spend his time and money resurrecting nazi and making those dystopian scifi real. That’s some insane dedication right there. Smart or not, dude is dangerous.

      • goodthanks@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I think he is dedicated, dangerous and awful. I just don’t think he is smart. I’ve known people who achieved wealth, started successful businesses etc. They had domain expertise and ambition. But they also neglected and fucked up other critical aspects of their lives (like their relationships with partners and kids). I didn’t consider them to be smart. In my mind, smart implies a well roundedness, and the capacity for self reflection, and empathy. Musk just has the personality traits, and family wealth, to enable him to “succeed” in our current society.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        not by accident, but certainly by luck, and then you can argue whether someone makes their own luck or not, musk hit the jackpot of being at the right moment at the right time and having the right skillset.

        There are plenty of alternate universes out there where he became a nobody after paypal.

    • peregrin5@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      It’s a compliment sandwich. You have to include the two pieces of compliment bread even if it’s bullshit or else you’ll be accused of not offering constructive criticism.

      • Fisherman75@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Trump makes a variety of compliment sandwiches. It’s hard to tell after a while just what kind of sandwich it is.

    • matti@sopuli.xyz
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      To be fair there are plenty of ruthless greedy people with zero morals out there but Musk is far more successful than any of them so something has to differentiate him. He might not be intelligent enough to recognise what a crigerworthy loser he is but let’s not pretend he isn’t smart.

      • goodthanks@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Mate, he is on a very self destructive spiral doing those nazi salutes at the inauguration. That’s not a smart move. He’s let his fantasies get the better of him. If he was really smart he would shut the fuck up about politics. He has everything, And consequently he values nothing.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Smart can mean many things. My dentist is smart, but he is not well rounded. Most people aren’t well rounded smart.

          Musk is a good investor, and expert con artist. He is smart in those ways.

              • nomy@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                Generational wealth is a bitch and doesn’t really prove anything.

                • peregrin5@lemm.ee
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                  2 days ago

                  Well the billions only came after his presidency because he now had a huge pool of loyalists he could grift out of their life savings with meme coin and begging for donations. Yes he had some generational wealth, most of which he blew on his bankrupted businesses but he’s also just a good grifter.

        • matti@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          A person doesn’t become not smart no matter how much he flirts with neo nazism. They might be an immoral piece of shit but pretending he isn’t also smart can be extremely dangerous, lest people think we can now just let him wreck his brand and become irrelevant.